chief opponents. O'Kelly enlisted the coöperation of Coke, and he, by becoming the champion of a General Conference, must be allowed to have been the agent who brought about at once the destruction of the Council and the inauguration of the Conference. At the General Conference of 1792, he was the father of the measure which incorporated the General Conference permanently in the government of the Church. Asbury had been, indeed, in 1784, the proposer of the Christmas Conference. Then, and again in 1787, he successfully interposed the authority of the American itinerants between himself and Mr. Wesley. But he does not seem, at this juncture, to have been favorable to a permanency of General Conferences, or even to a repetition in 1792 of the experiment of 1784. The Council was his personal measure, to which he appears to have been ardently attached. In this, we need not asperse his motives. But the inherent weaknesses and evils of the scheme doomed it from the beginning. As a consequence, Coke, Lee, and O'Kelly secured a General Conference.

BOOK V.

THE QUADRENNIAL GENERAL CONFERENCES TO THE INSTITUTION OF THE DELEGATED

GENERAL CONFERENCE.

I. THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1792.

II. THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1796.

III. THE GENERAL CONFERENCES OF 1800 AND 1804.

IV. THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1808.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1792.

O official Minutes of this Conference are extant.

No

"The

Minutes of the General Conference for 1792," says Dr. McClintock, "were never printed to my knowledge, nor can I find the original copy." This is confirmed by Jesse Lee, who says in his History: "The proceedings of that Conference were not published in separate Minutes, but the alterations were entered at their proper places, and published in the next edition of the Form of Discipline."† The title of this eighth edition is, "The Doctrine and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, revised and approved at the General Conference held at Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, in November, 1792: in which Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury presided. ‡ This Discipline, Lee's History, Coke's and Asbury's Journals, together with the reminiscences of Ware, Garrettson, and Colbert, are our sole, but sufficient, sources, for the transactions of this First Quadrennial General Conference.

The attendance was large. Lee says that

Our preachers who had been received into full connection came together from all parts of the United States where we had any circuits formed, with an expectation that something of great importance would take place in the Connection in consequence of that Conference. The preachers generally thought that in all probability there would never be another Conference of that kind, at which all the preachers in connection might attend. The work was spreading through all the United States and the different Territories, and was likely to increase more and more, so that it was generally thought that this Conference would adopt some permanent regulations which would prevent the preachers in future from coming together in a General Confer

ence.

Gen. Conf. Journals, I. 4.

In reply to some inquiries of Bishop Morris, in the Christian Advocate and Journal, in 1858, F. S. De Hass says, "We are happy to say that the Minutes are not entirely lost, and at some future day we may give the Minutes of these two important Conferences in full." So far as known, he has never done so, and as one of the "two important Conferences" is an alleged General Conference in 1788, we may despair of Mr. De Hass's possessing any Minutes of 1792. Emory, Hist. of Discipline, p. 88. 17

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Bishop Coke was just in time. He arrived in Baltimore at 9 P.M., Wednesday, October 31: the next morning the General Conference convened. Mr. Asbury and the preachers "had almost given me up," he writes. "Whilst we were sitting in the room at Mr. Rogers'," says Asbury, “in came Dr. Coke, of whose arrival we had not heard, and whom we embraced in great love." *

The first day was consumed in the adoption of rules of order, a precedent faithfully followed ever since. One of the regulations was, "It shall take two thirds of all the members of the Conference to make a new rule [of Discipline], or abolish an old one; but a majority may alter or amend any rule." A business committee was appointed to mature and bring forward measures for the action of the Conference, with the idea of saving time, but, as its debates were repeated on the floor of the House, it was found useless, and first enlarged, and then dismissed; when "any preacher,' says Lee, "was at liberty to bring forward any motion." A rule of debate was, "That each person, if he choose, shall have liberty to speak three times on each motion."

On the second day, Friday, O'Kelly introduced his historic resolution, radically modifying the appointing power of the Bishops, and indirectly reflecting on Asbury's administration. It was framed in these words:

After the bishop appoints the preachers at Conference to their several circuits, if any one think himself injured by the appointment, he shall have liberty to appeal to the Conference and state his objections; and if the Conference approve his objections, the bishop shall appoint him to another circuit.t

"I felt awful at the General Conference," writes Asbury, "my power to station the preachers without an appeal, was much debated, but finally carried by a very large majority. Perhaps a new bishop, new Conference, and new laws, would have better pleased some. Some individuals among the preachers having their jealousies about my influence in the Conference, I gave the matter wholly up to them,

*Journal, II. 146: Oct. 31 1792. † Lee, Hist. of the Methodists, p. 178.